Last night's episode of RuPaul's Drag Race was a doozy. The queens were paired off and tasked with creating their own TV pilot (very timely, by the way), and one team's performance wasn't ordered to series. Because of this, both Valentina and Nina Bonina Brown ended up in the bottom two, where they were asked to lip sync to Ariana Grande's song "Greedy". And what followed was the most uncomfortable lip sync to come from Drag Race's nine seasons and two seasons of All Stars.
Because Valentina began the lip sync with a mask over her mouth. About a minute into the song, the judges were utterly gobsmacked, and RuPaul had production temporarily stop the song. She insisted Valentina remove her mask, and though the young Queen originally protested, she was forced to comply.
Then things went from bad to worse, because it was clear that Valentina had not learned Ariana Grande's song. Like, even a little bit. Her attempt to wear a mask was to save face (literally), and not be further humiliated on national television. Unfortunately, her plan didn't exactly work. Check out the whole awkward debacle below.
Yikes.
It's actually pretty remarkable how far Valentina fell this episode. The young queen was one of the frontrunners of the season, raking up wins and high scores from the judges week after week. And while this clearly irked her fellow contestants, she became very popular among the fandom. But then this happened.
Because in addition to her unacceptable lip sync performance, Valentina also totally crapped the bed with her pilot. She and Nina didn't script a single word, including the voice over portion. So this week's episode saw Valentina doing basically no prep work at all. To be honest, I'm not sure why there weren't shots of her taking a nap in the workroom, like Tyra from Season 2.
And in the web exclusive backstage show Untucked, Val wasn't even shown attempting to learn the song before she returned to the main stage. Instead, she simply lamented her fate and hung out with Nina on the couch.
But while Valentina's exit from RuPaul's Drag Race was one of the worst of all time, she's certainly going to be memorable. And most contestants maintain that the real race is after the show, so perhaps she's become iconic enough to catapult to superstardom. Only time will tell.
RuPaul's Drag Race airs Friday nights on VH1. Be sure to check out our summer premiere list to plan your next binge watch.
